How Four Friends Built a $30 Billion Travel Empire (And Beat Expedia at Their Own Game)

Most people have never heard of Trip.com. But here's what they don't know: Trip.com Group processes $160 billion in travel bookings annually — making it the largest OTA in the world by GMV. Larger than Booking.com. Larger than Expedia.

And it was built by four friends in Shanghai who couldn't even get Chinese people to use the internet.

This is the untold story of how Ctrip became Trip.com — and what every entrepreneur can learn from their journey.

The Problem: Building Expedia for a Country Without Internet

The year was 1999.

In Silicon Valley, Expedia had just spun off from Microsoft as a multi-billion dollar business. Online travel was exploding. People were booking flights and hotels from their computers. The future was obvious.

James Liang saw it too.

He was a Chinese national working at Oracle in the United States. He watched Expedia, Travelocity, and Priceline transform how Americans traveled. And he had one thought:

China needs this.

There was just one problem.

In 1999, China had approximately 2.1 million internet users in a country of 1.3 billion people.

That's roughly 1.6 people per 1,000 with internet access.

Here's what made it worse:

• Over 90% of Chinese internet users only used it for email and instant messaging
• Only 15% had ever tried any form of e-commerce
• Credit cards were essentially non-existent
• The odds of someone booking a hotel online were close to zero

James Liang wanted to build Expedia for China.

But China wasn't ready for Expedia.

The Founders: Four Friends Who Bet Everything

June 1999. Shanghai.

Four friends sit in a room with a shared conviction: China will become the world's largest travel market. And nobody is building for it.

James Liang had just quit Oracle after 8 years in the US. He'd watched Expedia explode. He knew what was coming.

Neil Shen was a math prodigy turned Deutsche Bank investment banker. He could see the numbers — and the numbers said travel was a gold mine.

Min Fan came from the hotel industry. She knew how Chinese travelers actually behaved — not how Silicon Valley assumed they did.

Qi Ji could build anything. He'd run tech companies. He'd make it work.

They pooled their savings. Raised $5 million from IDG Capital and Softbank.

And then they launched a website that nobody visited.

Here's the thing about this team: they could have given up. They had safe careers to return to. Options.

Instead, they did something that would define Ctrip forever.

They pivoted.

Side note: Neil Shen would later become the #1 ranked venture capitalist in the world — four times on the Forbes Midas List. He invested early in ByteDance, Alibaba, JD.com, and Pinduoduo. Net worth today: $3.8 billion.

The Pivot: From Website to Airport Flyers

By November 1999, the Ctrip website was live.

And nobody came.

The founders quickly realized their problem:

You can't build an online business in a country that isn't online.

Around June 2000, Ctrip made a decision that would change everything.

Instead of waiting for China to get online, they would:

1. Buy traditional travel agencies — They acquired Beijing Modern Express Corporate Travel Service (30,000 room-nights per month)
2. Build a call center — 24-hour phone support where people could actually book
3. Send people to airports and train stations — Staff would hand out flyers promoting Ctrip's services

Yes, you read that right.

The "online travel agency" was distributing physical paper flyers at airports.

This became known as the "click-and-brick" model.

The model worked.

By 2002, Ctrip had over 1 million registered customers, was booking 400,000 room nights per month, and broke even — just 2.5 years after founding.

Sales accelerated from $724,000 in 2000 to $12.1 million in 2002.

16x growth in two years.

The SARS Survival: How Crisis Created a Monopoly

In early 2003, the SARS epidemic hit China.

Travel stopped. Hotels emptied. For most travel companies, this was extinction.

But James Liang did something unexpected.

He sent an email to all Ctrip employees with a simple message:

"After SARS, Ctrip will become stronger."

While competitors panicked, Ctrip kept their team intact, continued investing in technology, and prepared for the recovery.

When SARS ended, the travel industry exploded.

And Ctrip was the only one ready.

The crisis created a duopoly — and Ctrip was the dominant player.

The IPO: 86% First-Day Pop

On December 9, 2003, Ctrip went public on NASDAQ.

The IPO proved Chinese internet companies could succeed — and made the founders extremely wealthy.

Neil Shen sold his holdings about two years after the IPO. His return: 16x his investment.

This success gave him the credibility and capital to start Sequoia Capital China in 2005 — which would go on to become the most successful VC firm in Chinese history.

Trip.com Today: By the Numbers

Trip.com Group is now the largest OTA in the world by GMV, surpassing Booking Holdings.

And here's the kicker: Trip.com's commission rate is only 4.4% — compared to 14% at Booking and 12% at Expedia. Merchants get similar volumes at 1/3 the cost.

What Entrepreneurs Can Learn

1. Don't Copy — Adapt

James Liang didn't try to build "Expedia for China." He built something entirely new that met Chinese consumers where they were.

2. Infrastructure Gaps Create Opportunities

Ctrip succeeded because China lacked internet infrastructure. While competitors waited for China to "catch up," Ctrip built workarounds.

3. Crises Are Selection Events

SARS didn't destroy Ctrip — it destroyed their competitors. When competitors panic, the prepared thrive.

4. The Dream Team Matters

Tech (Liang), Finance (Shen), Industry (Fan), Engineering (Ji). They covered every critical function. No gaps.

5. Think Global From Day One

Their 2016-2019 acquisition spree (Skyscanner, Trip.com, MakeMyTrip) wasn't opportunistic — it was planned.

The Bottom Line

In 1999, four friends in Shanghai looked at China and saw what everyone else missed:

The world's largest travel market was hiding in plain sight.

They didn't have internet penetration. They didn't have credit cards. They didn't have any of the things that made Expedia successful.

So they built something different.

Twenty-five years later, Trip.com Group processes more travel bookings than any company on earth.

And most people in the West still haven't heard of them.

That's about to change.